The invention relates to the technical field of dispensers of wipe materials, of the paper, cotton wool, recycled paper type, and this with automatic cutting.
The applicant has specialized for more than thirty or so years in the design of this type of dispenser, which is utilized internationally. These dispensers (A) are of the type, based on a housing with lid, to laterally receive end plates (1), from which there are disposed a drum (2) incorporating a cutting device (6), a material reel (3) wound on a supporting core having end fittings, which take up position on the reel-holder end plate portion. A press roller (4) comes to counter-bear upon the drum between which the pulled material band passes, which follows the path represented diagrammatically in FIG. 1. The material band is tugged by the user as it leaves the dispenser and, depending on the traction force, which is extremely variable, a phenomenon can occur involving the appearance of material curls formed between the press roller and the reel.
In order to eliminate this drawback, the applicant has developed various means and devices having an anti-curl function, these devices acting essentially upon the material reel to make it turn in the direction counter to its usual direction of unwinding in order to effect a rewind operation. Thus, such devices are described in the following French patents of the applicant, FR 0002722, FR 9719536, FR 0312506, FR 0312505.
These devices are very reliable and meet perfectly the requirements, and this for the great majority of paper-type material reels, which are found, in particular, on the European market.
The defined problem resides, however, with certain types of material reels, consisting of recycled paper, which are extremely smooth, so that the material turns slide amongst themselves and the anti-curl devices previously developed by the applicant prove insufficient to prevent curls from forming after a strong tug.
This situation is extremely annoying, since the use of smooth recycled paper wound onto a reel is becoming increasingly widespread and, unfortunately, one can only note the lack of results from previous devices, with an increase in maintenance, numerous dispensers falling “out of service” if the curls of material bands are not automatically eliminated.
The approach of the applicant has therefore been to consider a new design of anti-curl device on the dispenser of the aforesaid type, which addresses the defined problem relative to the material reels of the smooth recycled paper type, but which also, by the same event, remains applicable to the other material reels of the type for which the anti-curl devices designed and developed by the applicant remain valid.
The entire difficulty was therefore to design a new anti-curl device without deploying a complexity of means and components which add to the cost of the dispenser and without sacrificing effectiveness.
In order to address the defined problem, the first direction of research was to improve the existing anti-curl devices to make them more effective with respect to this type of smooth recycled paper. In practice, the envisaged modifications and improvements have proved inadequate and, in any event, not sufficiently reliable to dispense in large runs and on a continuous basis material bands with the aforesaid smooth recycled paper. Performances in the past are inadequate and there can therefore be no question of putting on the market solutions which have been unreliable in the past, which then pose maintenance problems for companies which operate dispensers of this type and which supply reels.
The approach of the applicant has therefore been to fully reconsider the concept of the anti-curl device and, starting from a value analysis, to make certain modifications to the actual design of the dispenser, in particular starting from its loading arm.
This new approach has thus enabled a very simple and effective solution to be found, which addresses the defined problem and, additionally and unexpectedly, simplifies the loading of the material reel in the dispenser.